by Jayne Castle
"I regret to say that was precisely the problem. You see, the Philosopher has made it clear that we are to keep our work here in the catacombs secret until we have achieved our objective."
"Which is?"
Herbert came to a halt in front of a floor-to-ceiling wall hanging that featured a scene of the towering gates that guarded the Dead City above ground. He managed to position himself so that he was framed by the two great pillars. Lydia was sure that wasn't an accident. You had to hand it to Herb. He had flair.
"We are searching for the tomb of the great Amatheon," Herbert said. Awe and reverence reverberated in his words. "We have reason to believe that it is in this sector. We are very close to our objective, Mrs. London. But secrecy is vital at this stage."
"Why? You said yourself you control this entire sector. You can do whatever you want down here."
"Please, Mrs. London, don't act naive. You know as well as I do what it is like here in the catacombs. No sector can ever be completely mapped, charted, or secured. No matter how thoroughly the survey crews do their job, they cannot possibly locate and clear, let alone protect, every single chamber or corridor."
"Mmm," she said, going for noncommittal. She could not argue with him. He was right.
"Worse yet, once the word gets out that valuable antiquities have been discovered in a sector, the ruin rats descend like the human vermin they are. Somehow, they always manage to find their own entrances."
"In other words, you didn't want the outside world to find out what you were doing down here. You knew that if you called the authorities and told them to come pick me up from your infirmary, your secret would be out."
"Yes." Herbert shook his head. "I apologize, but in our defense, I must tell you that we only did what we felt was both reasonable and right at the time. While you were sleeping under the influence of the medication, we took you to one of the sectors that is administered by the university and left you at a regularly used entrance. We knew that you would be found very quickly and that was exactly what happened."
Liar. Her fingers tightened around the handle of the cup. She had walked for miles underground before locating an exit. Herbert was relying on her well-documented amnesia to cover up the cracks in his version of the truth.
"I see." She crossed her legs and tried to project an expression of reluctant interest. "Well, that does explain a few things. I suppose you know that I have no memories of those forty-eight hours."
Herbert nodded in sympathy. "It's common knowledge that amnesia is normal following a bad burn. Often the effects are even worse. Most people who go through what you went through are not quite, shall we say, normal, afterward."
"A lot of people still don't think I'm normal. I was fired from my job at the university because the para-psychologists didn't think I'd ever be able to work underground again."
"You can hardly blame them for their opinion, Mrs. London. Very few para-rezes are ever able to go back into the catacombs after experiencing serious dissonance trauma." Herbert gave her a blinding smile. "But you are obviously an exception to the rule."
"Mmm."
"I'd like to think that the reason you survived with your psi faculties intact was because we found you so soon after your encounter with the ghost and were able to treat you immediately with the latest medications."
He really was a great actor, she thought. Herbert was able to mix the truth and lies together in a seamless tale. If she hadn't regained some whispers of her memory, she might have bought the whole story.
But Herb had made a serious mistake. He obviously did not know about Fuzz's role in her rescue.
She knew exactly how she had escaped. Her memory of awakening in an empty corridor to find Fuzz crouched beside her, licking her face with his raspy little tongue, would be with her forever.
"Let's cut to the chase here, Herb. As long as I appeared to be just another burned-out para-rez with a case of amnesia, you didn't care what I did aboveground. But when you realized that I had recovered fully and was able to work again, you decided to grab me."
"To be blunt, yes."
"I went back into the catacombs for the first time last month." She swung her ankle, thinking quickly. "The news was in the papers because of the dreamstone find. Was that when you found out that I was resonating on all frequencies again?"
"Yes. I am delighted to say that you surprised all of us, Mrs. London."
"What do you want from me?"
Herbert clasped his hands behind his back and regarded her with somber determination. "We need you, Mrs. London. In fact, we are quite desperate for your assistance. You are our last hope."
She eyed him skeptically. "Yeah?"
Herbert unclasped his hands and started toward her. "Come with me. I want to show you something that will astonish you."
Chapter 27
Emmett felt the psi energy leaking out of the hidden rat hole long before Cornish and Verwood had finished pushing the empty shipping casks out of the way. His senses weren't picking up the usual fleeting wisps of power that were common in the Old Quarter, rather the strong, steady pulses that indicated an entrance into the catacombs. He was aware that Fuzz, still perched on his shoulder, was tensed as if he was about to spring.
"I followed Maltby here a couple of nights." Cornish stepped back to dust off his hands. "He never saw me. He went inside and stayed gone for hours. Figured this was where he had his hole. I came back one evening when I knew he was passed out from doing Chartreuse. I poked around a bit." He waved a hand at the floorboards. "There's a trapdoor there."
Verwood aimed the flashlight at the boards and glanced at Emmett. "Want me to open it, Boss?"
"Go ahead."
The dilapidated building in which they were standing was in the old warehouse district near the South Wall. All of the buildings along this section of the riverfront had been abandoned and boarded up years ago. Eventually it would probably be redeveloped but not for a long time. There were other, more fashionable sections of the Quarter that would get the gentrification treatment before this one did.
Verwood reached down to pry up the hinged section of flooring. The door into the catacombs opened with a squeak and a groan.
They all looked down into impenetrable darkness.
Cornish grinned. "Illusion trap. Maltby installed it to protect his little hole."
Emmett looked at him. "You didn't mention that it was trapped."
Cornish jerked as if Emmett had touched him with the point of a blade. "Hey, hey, it's okay." He stepped back hastily. "I'm a pretty fair tangler. Used to work the ruins on a regular basis. I can de-rez this for you. I did it the night I found it and then reset it so Maltby would never know."
"Do it," Emmett said evenly. "Destroy it so that it can't be reset."
"Sure, right, no problem." Cornish skittered closer to the opening.
Emmett and Verwood exchanged glances and then both moved back several paces. The first rule of working in the catacombs was not to stand too close to a tangler who was de-rezzing illusion shadow, no matter how small. That went double if you had never seen him work before and didn't know how competent he was. One small mistake on the tangler's part and everyone in the vicinity got caught in the explosion of nightmares that swept out on paranormal frequencies.
Cornish worked the shadow quickly and then held up both hands with a magician's flourish. "There you go, one trap de-rezzed. Maltby kept a little base station down there. Fixed it up real nice. When I went in I found one of those small, one-man mag-sleds, bottled water, food, even a portable lav."
Emmett moved back to the opening in the floor and looked down. A flight of rickety, human-made steps disappeared into deep darkness. But the flashlight beam cut through it with no trouble. Not illusion shadow, just an absence of light.
"I'll check it out," Emmett said to Verwood. "You stay with Cornish."
"Hey, I'm outta here," Cornish howled. "You promised I could go if I showed you the rat hole. I even de-rezzed it for you."
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Emmett ignored the protest. "Watch him, Verwood. He doesn't leave until I verify that there are no more traps."
"Got it, Boss."
Cornish subsided, grumbling.
Emmett and Fuzz descended the shaky steps. The flashlight picked out the damp walls of a tunnel that had been dug with human tools. The atmosphere was dank and humid. The close confines triggered a latent claustrophobia Emmett hadn't known he possessed.
But the pulse of psi energy was stronger now and he knew that Fuzz was feeling it, too. The dust-bunny's little claws were squeezing and contracting on his shoulder and the small beast was leaning forward so far he was in danger of falling off his perch.
The steps spiraled downward and turned a corner. The tunnel walls were so tight now that Emmett had to force himself to breathe normally.
Then he saw the reassuring crack of green light up ahead. The fact that there were no suspicious dark patches and no suspicious tingles of energy meant that it was untrapped. He paused at the entrance and called back up to Verwood.
"I'm going in."
"Right, Boss." Verwood's voice was muffled and far away.
Emmett turned sideways to slide through the opening in the catacomb wall. The very existence of such cracks in the green stone had puzzled the experts for years. After all, the quartz seemed virtually indestructible, so how was it possible that slits and holes and crannies had occurred?
A number of theories had been advanced, including the possibility that at some time in the past massive earthquakes had proved more powerful than the alien-engineered quartz.
Others had concluded that the damage had been done in the construction process and had gone unnoticed. A third school held that the rat holes had been created by the thieves, renegades, and outlaws among the ancient Harmonics who had had access to the tools and machines that had been used to build the underground maze.
Whatever the cause, the rat holes were scattered around all of the ancient cities. As long as they existed there was no way to completely limit access to the catacombs. There would always be ruin rats, illegal antiquities hunters, thrill seekers, and criminals who would be willing to take their chances underground.
Once through the crack, Emmett found himself confronted by a standard-looking passageway. There were several intersections ahead, each with a number of branching corridors that would, in turn, lead to more intersections and branching passages and so on for miles. Without amber he would become disoriented and lost as soon as he turned the first corner.
He sent a small pulse of psi power through his watch face, orienting his para-rez senses. The tuned amber functioned as a compass. Now, no matter where he went down here, he would be able to find his way back to this spot. He could use someone else's amber to navigate if necessary.
Near the entrance were the supplies and equipment that Maltby had accumulated during his years of ruin hunting. Emmett stepped up into the mag-sled, pulsed the key, and glanced at the amber-rez directional locator situated on the dash. It was functional. Now he had a backup compass.
The little vehicle hummed to life.
Fuzz growled, sounding agitated and impatient. Emmett reached up and took him down from his shoulder. He held the dust-bunny up so that he could look the creature straight in all four of his eyes.
"This is it, pal. You're on. We're playing the Find Lydia game for real. You did it once before. Let's see if you can do it again."
Fuzz blinked. His hunting eyes gleamed. His sleek, sinewy little body quivered beneath the ratty fur.
Emmett put him down on top of the sled's hood directly in front of the wheel, facing the corridors.
"Find Lydia."
He set the sled into motion, moving at a slow speed, praying that Fuzz would send some kind of signal with his body language at the first intersection.
Fuzz leaned forward as if sniffing the scent on some invisible wind. If he was right, Emmett thought, the dust-bunny was actually sending out some sort of psychic probe.
At the first branching in the corridors, they confronted the entrance to five different passages. Emmett looked at Fuzz who was staring fixedly at the second tunnel on the right.
Experimentally, Emmett started to veer to the left.
Fuzz stiffened, bounced a few times, and uttered a series of sharp little growls. His distress was plain.
Emmett obediently turned toward the tunnel that had caught Fuzz's attention.
The dust-bunny settled down, satisfied, and went back to staring straight ahead.
"Fuzz, old buddy, you make one hell of a hood ornament."
Chapter 28
The endless cascades of illusion shadow plunged in seething waves from ceiling to floor. The thick, churning darkness formed an ominous curtain of energy across one entire wall of the vast chamber.
Lydia stared at it, awed and seriously thrilled in spite of the fact that she had other priorities at the moment. Priorities such as figuring out how to escape the clutches of the Greenies.
"You were right, Herb," she said, trying not to let her excitement show. "It's incredible. Absolutely huge."
"About two hundred feet across and nearly forty feet high," Herbert said. "None of the tanglers on our crews can even come close to figuring out how to de-rez it."
She found herself succumbing to her professional curiosity. "Did you check the records?"
"I assure you, I've spent hours searching excavation reports all the way back to the founding of the colonies and there is no record of anyone ever encountering anything like this. As far as we can tell it is unique."
Lydia did not point out that unique was a high-risk word in para-archaeology. Just because an unusual illusion trap or a particular type of relic appeared to be one of a kind did not mean that there weren't a thousand more of them somewhere down here in the unmapped sectors awaiting discovery. She was not, however, in the mood to discuss archaeological theory and practice with Herb.
"You really think you're going to find the tomb of this Amatheon character behind that illusion trap?" she asked. She had not yet been able to figure out if Herbert had bought into his own cult beliefs or not.
"Amatheon has guided us to this place," Herbert intoned. "This incredible wall of trap shadow was obviously set to protect some great secret. It can only be the Philosopher's tomb."
"No offense, Herb, but if you really believe that you're channeling Amatheon, you should probably make an appointment with a good para-shrink first thing in the morning."
Herbert did not take offense. He merely inclined his head politely. "I know you do not follow the teachings. That is your choice. But if it makes you feel any better, I will tell you that in addition to Amatheon's guidance, I had the help of a map."
"Good grief, you found a genuine Harmonic map and you didn't turn it over to the authorities? Do you have any idea of how valuable such a discovery is? In two hundred years we haven't found any written records, at least none that we've been able to decipher. A map of even a portion of the catacombs would be an incredible thing."
"Calm yourself, Mrs. London." Herbert raised his brows. "I didn't say that the map was drawn by the Harmonics."
"Oh." Lydia took a deep breath and got herself back under control. "So, who did create it?"
"I believe that the chart was hand drawn by Vincent Lee Vance."
"You're joking, right? Are you telling me that the revolutionary leader found this place a hundred years ago and drew a map?"
"That is exactly what I am telling you. I suspect that Vance established his second headquarters on the other side of that curtain of energy in the tomb of Amatheon."
Several pieces of the jumbled puzzle settled into place.
"Where did you find this map?" Lydia asked cautiously.
"In Vance's first headquarters, in the catacombs beneath Old Frequency."
Lydia sucked in her breath. "You're Troy Burgis, aren't you?"
Real surprise flashed briefly in his eyes. He concealed it quickly. "Troy Burgis disappeared f
ifteen years ago, Mrs. London. He never reappeared."
"Okay, have it your way. Tell me, what makes you think that I can de-rez this monster?"
"I don't think you can do it, Mrs. London, I know you can."
"What do you mean?"
"You did it once before, the last time you were here."
Lydia spun back to face him. "What are you saying?"
"This is the chamber where we found you unconscious. There are only two ways to get into this room. We know for certain that you did not arrive here via the corridor that you and I just used because it is guarded at all times. There is only one other way you could have entered this place."
"You're saying that I came through that illusion trap?"
Herbert inclined his head. "As far as we know, you are the only person who has ever seen the inside of Amatheon's tomb and Vance's secret headquarters here in Cadence."
"You kidnapped me so that I could show you how I de-rezzed that massive trap?"
"As I said, we are desperate. In exchange for showing us the path into the tomb we are prepared to let you have full excavation rights. You, Mrs. London, will have the honor, not to mention the enormous prestige, of being the lead para-archaeologist on the team that documents and records whatever lies behind that barrier. You've been looking for a way to regain your reputation. This project will make you a legend in the world of para-archaeology"
"There's just one problem," Lydia said. "I don't remember how I did it the first time."
The Greenie robe smelled unpleasantly of someone else's body odor but at least it fit reasonably well. Fuzz had the worst of it because he was inside, tucked under Emmett's arm.
The dust-bunny had guided him to a sector that was listed as Unmapped on the sled's built-in locator. There was a note that a privately held corporation named Ama-Green had taken out a license to excavate for purposes of research and exploration.
At the first evidence of human occupation—discarded newspapers and trash in the tunnels—Emmett had abandoned the sled, taking Fuzz with him.
They had encountered the first guard station a few minutes later. Emmett had managed to slip into an empty passageway just in time to avoid discovery.
